ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 15, 1996 TAG: 9603150052
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Don Moore, Montgomery County's economic development director, is going nearly solo at month's end. At least for a time.
Moore and his top two employees, Lisa Fain and Lisa Ison, had been known in their field as "Don and the Lisas." Then two weeks ago Lisa Ison left to head Roanoke's new business incubator.
Now Lisa Fain is leaving, too. Or, as Moore put it, "The Don and Lisa show is coming to an end."
Fain, a Montgomery County employee for four and a half years, starts April 1 as an economic development specialist in Roanoke. One of three specialists, Fain will manage the city's two enterprise zones and its programs targeted at existing industry.
Given Ison's departure, Fain said she wishes hers could have been delayed a month or so. But the opportunity is open now and she has to take it. "I certainly wasn't dissatisfied here," Fain said. "The Board [of Supervisors] and the county have been so supportive of our department."
Moore said the closing date for applications to fill Ison's job is today. Now he'll have to seek an OK from the Board of Supervisors to refill Fain's position as the marketing and research associate.
"It's going to hurt us dramatically, for a while," he said. "I don't know how long it will be, but of course losing two employees of that caliber in a month's time, there's just no way we can keep carrying the load of responsibility and having the productivity we've had." For now, the department consists of Moore and an administrative assistant.
"They got so good and the reputation of what they were doing spread out into other areas and people came looking for them," he said.
The two departures have another aspect, too. They would appear to back up advocates of a major adjustment to the county's pay scale to stop the drain of Montgomery talent to neighboring local governments. In the 1996-97 budget, which is under consideration, the county would give its employees the second consecutive 5 percent across-the-board salary adjustment, on top of annual average 4.5 percent step increases.
Fain said she will go from a salary of $28,900 to one of $35,000 in Roanoke, a 21 percent pay increase. But she said money was not the only thing that influenced her decision. "I see it also as an opportunity for me to grow in the economic development profession," she said.
A 29-year-old Virginia Tech graduate with a bachelor's in English, Fain got into the field in a roundabout way. After graduating from college, the Bassett native taught English in Virginia Beach for several years. Then she followed her husband, Rob Fain, to Blacksburg to start several businesses. When she was unable to land a teaching job locally, she started working for a temp agency and came to the county's economic development office in that role in the summer of 1991.
Moore said Fain came with no background in the field but a "tremendously good attitude," an openness to learning and good work skills. When the administrative assistant's job opened that summer, Fain applied and Moore hired her. She later moved up to more responsibilities, took economic development courses and is now pursuing a master's in public administration at Tech through night classes at the Roanoke Graduate Center.
Fain said the one thing she's most proud of during her tenure is the growing consensus in the community in support of economic development, particularly for a major publicly owned, fully developed industrial park, such as the planned 165-acre Falling Branch park in Christiansburg. "That's going to be an exciting project for the community," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB